MOTM

>    From: "Paul Schreiber" <synth1@...>
> Subject: Robert Rich concert?
> 
> I know some of you guys went! How about a report?

It was absolutely incredible!  The darkened planetarium was a great
backdrop to Robert's lush, evolving music.  He mixed some wonderfully
complex modular synth patches with some soft pads from "plain vanilla"
synths and wove in some acoustic sounds throughout the set.  The songs
were delieated by theme, and not silence - it was 90+ minutes of
constantly shifting audio imagery.

The (very large) MOTM modular that he had was the center of the
"orchestra pit", but he frequently went to a lap steel (the guitar-like
thing on a stand that the country music guys use all the time) and
brought sounds from it that were somewhere between a moan, a cry, and a
howl.  Towards the end of the set, he used three different wind
instruments to add a ghostly presence to the atmospheres.

The title of the performance was "Alien Zoology", and lying back and
looking at the star show I could see various life forms coming alive,
from little spacey-insects swarming around us, large herds roaming the
vast plains, underwater schools of sea creatures swimming by, and much
more. 

I believe the PA was playing in stereo - I can't wait to hear what
Robert is going to do with surround sound!  Sign me up for his first
5.1 channel DVD!  Also sound-related, the performance might have had a
little more impact if there were some subwoofers carrying more of the
low end.  Still, the sound quality was easily a 9/10 and I'm just being
picky.

Robert is truly a master of the ambient/atmospheric genre, and I think
it's unfortunate that he doesn't get more mainstream recognition and
popularity.  Then again, it's really nice to go to a small, intimate
show where you can meet the artist afterwards.

I'm looking forward to seeing him live again next year!

Graham

PS I think I saw some other MOTM'ers there, but it's been a few years
and my memory is fading at my old age of 30!

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